Walter The Robot Maker
When Honduras-born Walter Alexander Martinez Marconi was 6 years old he was already cannibalizing toys and old TV sets for parts to assemble new Frankenstein-type creatures in whose tangle of circuits beat the dream of building robots. Now, he is an Information Technology Manager and Professor of electrical engineering at California State University, Long Beach, where he teaches the secrets of robotics. “Once you learn how a robot works you know how all robots work,” he told Efe in an interview conducted in a classroom full of machines and robots, in different stages of development, showing how far we are from the day when androids such as those in the movies actually walk on the streets. “The software is quite ahead of the hardware,” Martinez said as he switched on several of prototypes able to make gestures, blink their “eyebrows” and move around. Robots as in “Her” and “I, Robot” The current level of technology, he said, is closer to the 2013 movie “Her,” about a man who falls in love with an operating system, than to the 2004 film “I, Robot,” where android servants rebel against their human masters. “”The human brain is much more complex,” he said. Martinez, since 2011 president of the South California Robotics Society, was a robotics expert for the movie “Transformers: Age of Extinction” where parts of his garage were modeled in the movie. Walter also created a promotional mind controller robot and an event at the Boy and Girls club of East Los Angeles for the movie Pacific Rim part 2. The coexistence between humans and humanoid Transformers” and “Star Wars” happen in other galaxies but Martinez believes there will be a time on Earth when companion robots will be usual, especially for seniors such as in the movie “Robot & Frank.” There is plenty of interest in Japan in developing this kind of android to assist the country´s aging population, Martinez said, pointing to Honda´s Asimo prototype. “It is important that artificial intelligence acquires a body,” he said. “A major problem with portable robots is the duration of the battery,” he said. “If a robot´s battery lasts for just 20 minutes of conversation people will get bored, said. Walter also created robots for television show Robotica, RobotWars, SteelConflict, SoZ in Burbank, CA and competed in Battlebots and Battlebots IQ with his robots Red Virus, i-Droid, Shaka, Zulu, Mechadroid, MyterByter, SharkTooth and CH53. Walter has made robots for two Exxon Mobile television commercials, and Amazon pilot tv show, Nickelodeon's Taina and a Nickelodeon tv pilot. To help convey his passion for robotics to everyone Martinez has developed a kit that allows adults and children 10 years of age to build their autonomous robots without much previous knowledge./span> Martinez´s website RoboticsCity.com and Waltertherobotmaker.com provide plenty of information about him and the art of building robotos. His robots are all of the world and even tested by Cape Verde University and he hopes he can inspire and motivate Latino students into getting into the areas of STEM - science, technology, engineering and mathematics. “Using this technology one learns, more or less, what is used in the electric Tesla cars,” he said. “Everything is interconnected”. Walter is currently making life size Star Wars Droids with his own touch and doing research with social robots including Pepper, NAO and an InMoov 3D printed robot that he completed.